It's a good thing my initial post was never directed at you nor did I ever care how much you wanted to get in an argument or not.

I like where you assume what my views are.

That tells me that you really don't get it: this is exactly what the people who are actually against you are going to use. You need to be able to rebut this, or just QFT.

Me telling you to from stronger arguments doesn't make me your enemy nor your opposition, so I would appreciate you not treating me as such. Right now, as it stands, you are the one doing the hand waving and being dismissive.

You are not helping yourself.

If you don't want to argue then don't. Someone will answer, it doesn't need to be you. As I said, which was addressed to Sam, someone whom I consider to be one of the smartest people I know, and I was really looking for an answer.

You going on with terse retorts and making poor assumptions is not helping your point._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

Last edited by Darqcyde on Tue Feb 26, 2013 9:03 pm; edited 1 time in total

Joined: 09 Jul 2006Posts: 9718Location: I have to be somewhere? ::runs around frantically::

Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 8:59 pm Post subject:

Fuck the special circumstances - we are excluding that shit.

So, does anyone take it seriously that some guy thinks that their rights to a baby have been infringed because they didn't use a condom? More seriously, does anyone think that men might think they have less (or more... any effect really) impetus to take care of a kid because a woman has the right to choose whether or not to take a particular set of cells to term? Hell, maybe she didn't want _that_ guy's baby (rapist is an easy scapegoat here).

It seems a bit one sided to exclude men from the to keep the baby or not to keep the baby and that it because it is one sided (risk blah blah blah). However, the PLANNING to have a baby SHOULD include both partners because both will be parents. _________________Before God created Las he pondered on all the aspects a woman might have, he considered which ones would look good super-inflated and which ones to leave alone.
After much deliberation he gave her a giant comfort zone. - Michael

Hey, pointless displays of passive aggression works for me too. Iím just going to say out loud that seeing as there was a reasonable discussion already going, your derailing of it is just part and parcel of the normal disrespect for womenís opinions and exactly in line with the gambit of trying to erode bodily integrity by stealth which I outlined in my very first post, so you should take your full measure of shame for engaging in that.

On a related note: should there be established a legal precedent of non-enforceable paternity if it can be proven that conception happened under deceptive practices?

While most of what I was asking is towards the extreme end of hypotheticals, the above is very relevant._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

Child support and parental rights haven't really been addressed much, yet, in this discussion, although they are also central issues about a pregnancy to be considered along with the question of who has what input to the decision whether or not to bear the child to term. (BTW, vector, the mechanism of the "legal abortion" already exists in that it is possible for a person to sign away his or her parental rights; this actually gets done in many cases of adoption when one or both of the child's biological parents are still living.)

I'll accept that pregnancy is inherently unfair and that, therefor, a decision to abort a pregnancy is inherently unfair in an opposed manner; thus, the father-to-be can only hope to be considered in the matter, but he has no means of defending this hope as a right.

I, myself, consider it essential to consensual relations to also consider the possible consequences, and I consider it only responsible to withhold consent if one is unwilling to face any of those possible consequences. In the case of sex, pregnancy is always a possible consequence. So, if either partner is unwilling to see a child born and then to invest the vast amount of effort and money required to raise that child to adulthood, then, kids, keep it in your pants. I don't regard horniness as a sufficient justification for bringing an unwanted child into this world, nor for aborting an inconvenient pregnancy. Being a responsible adult means considering the consequences of ones choices at the time the choice is made, and consenting to all of those possible consequences at the same time one consents to the choice. Consent isn't just a freedom; it is also a commitment.

Let us then seek to bring some equity into this inherently iniquitous situation.

Posit a couple where the women has become pregnant by informed, consensual relations between adults, as before, and in which the man wishes to see his child born and to raise his child but in which the woman does not wish to be pregnant and/or does not wish to raise the child after birth. Could the man offer the woman reasonable compensation for her troubles--payment of all associated medical expenses, support for any time during the pregnancy and immediately following the birth during which she may be unable to work, and even reasonable compensation for her time and her suffering--or would this be prostitution?

My view: such an offer is no more offensive than an offer to employ a woman for other skills she may have. Let us say she holds an engineering degree, and she is offered employment with medical insurance for 9 to 12 months building some heavy machinery. The job has risks associated with it: heavy machinery can easily crush or mutilate a person if something goes wrong. Is this job offer essentially different in any way from offering her compensation to bring a pregnancy to term and then sign her parental rights over to the child's father?_________________I am only a somewhat arbitrary sequence of raised and lowered voltages to which your mind insists upon assigning meaning

Last edited by bitflipper on Tue Feb 26, 2013 9:20 pm; edited 1 time in total

Joined: 09 Jul 2006Posts: 9718Location: I have to be somewhere? ::runs around frantically::

Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 9:16 pm Post subject:

No, I don't think you could have a legal precedent of that purely because I don't think you could ever prove the deceptive practice._________________Before God created Las he pondered on all the aspects a woman might have, he considered which ones would look good super-inflated and which ones to leave alone.
After much deliberation he gave her a giant comfort zone. - Michael

Well take my sister, for example, she does not deny in the slightest that she conceived my nephew under false pretense; in fact she readily admits it.

Don't get me wrong here: I'm asking questions that I have no idea what the answer to them is.

I mean, I understand the potential for guys to abuse it but the other side is right there in front of me.

In other circumstances, I've seen people abuse legal loopholes and my own life has been made shitty by it, directly and indirectly. I'm looking for an answer that leaves a few people as possible screwed over (no pun intended) while at the same time protecting the rights of those who have done no wrong.

To put it in perspective: I've had the conversation with my wife: What if she were incapacitated and pregnant (say coma from a car accident). . . blah blah blah What would I do?

I could not answer, I would not answer, the thought of having to make that decision scares the shit out of me._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

bitflipper, I tend to think it would be difficult to get around that obstacle but I am not entirely against the idea. For example, in the case of dealing with fertility problems, procedures such as IVF sometimes utilise a surrogate mother to carry the foetus to term, who is not the biological contributor of the egg. Finding a surrogate mother to go through a pregnancy using a similar technique of implantation in the absence of an underlying fertility problem would be a highly unusual circumstance perhaps, but itís clearly not impossible with current medical techniques.

However: a job with risks attached to it isnít the same as pregnancy, as there are permanent effects on a womanís body from pregnancy irrespective of whether additional complications occur, so I am not really inclined to view that as the same as the chance of incurring a workplace injuryÖ but it is worth noting on the other hand that surrogacy is treated as employment and labour, and that surrogate mothers are compensated accordingly. Itís usually done as a contract, hopefully entered willingly and with consent on all sides Ė†whereas consigning people to hard labour is normally the province of punishments meted out to criminals. Whilst there is political disagreement as to whether people should have the right to refuse a job they donít want to undertake, that doesnít apply to being pregnant Ė itís not a job in that sense. And calling it prostitution is several shades of highly dubious and/or wrong.

By the way, a better term than prostitution which doesnít stigmatise the people who engage in it, is sex work.

I could not answer, I would not answer, the thought of having to make that decision scares the shit out of me.

And well that it should; it shows you have a caring heart! (Who'd a thunk it, eh, Darq? ;-p ) I hope you never have to face that decision in life.

As for someone who becomes pregnant under false pretenses, well, I'd really like a lawyer's opinion on that. What recourses are available? What liabilities will the father bear for the pregnancy? For child support? What parental rights has he got? Can he sue for sole custody? If so, can he also sue for child support? Again, these are questions I would seek a lawyer's advice on._________________I am only a somewhat arbitrary sequence of raised and lowered voltages to which your mind insists upon assigning meaning

However: a job with risks attached to it isnít the same as pregnancy, as there are permanent effects on a womanís body from pregnancy irrespective of whether additional complications occur, so I am not really inclined to view that as the same as the chance of incurring a workplace injury

I carry enough scars from metal-working that I might be willing to argue the "permanent effects" aspect, but I doubt we'd share the same connotations on far too many critical words in that discussion. I'll concede the point as is: employment and surrogacy may be related, but each is distinct in its risks, elligibility requirements, obligations, and remuneration. The important point, though, is that surrogacy could allow other options to be explored in cases of unwanted pregnancies.

Two critical differences I did think of after posting, though, is that an engineer can lay down her tools at the end of the day and leave the headaches of the project on the factory floor, and that an engineer can walk off of the job any time it becomes intolerable. A surrogate mother doesn't have these options.

XanthŽ wrote:

[Surrogacy]ís usually done as a contract, hopefully entered willingly and with consent on all sides Ė†whereas consigning people to hard labour is normally the province of punishments meted out to criminals.

Would you be willing to agree that it is at least a little bit criminally negligent for a couple to hop into the sack without at least considering the possible results of their actions? It might provide a smooth path around that obstacle... ;-p

XanthŽ wrote:

Whilst there is political disagreement as to whether people should have the right to refuse a job they donít want to undertake, that doesnít apply to being pregnant

Actually, it could, in this scenario; I've been careful to construct it such that all the man can do is to offer the woman compensation to change her mind and to carry the pregnancy to term. She can still refuse the offer and elect to seek an abortion, if such is her choice.

This isn't an attempt to find a perfect solution, just one a little better than what we currently have. The next generation can take it upon their own shoulders to further refine our work._________________I am only a somewhat arbitrary sequence of raised and lowered voltages to which your mind insists upon assigning meaning

Sorry to hear it, vector010. If you didnít end up fathering a child, however, then perhaps the answer is your partner knew what she was doing in spite of skipping the pill? Are you saying youíre totally sure that your partner was deliberately attempting to become pregnant by deception? Because while that sucks if thatís the case, then youíve got larger problems than just a possible pregnancy to work on in your relationship, and it still doesnít entitle you to a say over someone elseís bodily autonomy.

The other thing worth considering is the oral contraceptive pill isnít 100% guaranteed to work; illness and other medicines can neutralise its effect at certain points of the cycle. If youíre having PIV sex then there are other possible recourses to consider Ė condoms, spermicidal gel and/or a diaphragm, and so on.

Attempting to get out of paternity would not be pleasant where coercion had been used, I agree, but calling that abrogation of parental responsibility a Ďlegal abortioní is a misnomer; where that is unfair to some men, unfortunately there are plenty of deadbeat fathers who do try to get out of supporting their children when relationships when things have gone sour later, and it is difficult to arrive at a zero sum accounting of all these problems when the parties concerned have not broken up amicably. Child support is complicated, but the thread started from a point of considering a case where sexual consent had been obtained. If you are unwilling to consent to sex because of the non-zero chance of pregnancy, that is definitely something you need to agree on with your partner.

Hope this helps.

Oh yes, there were MANY problems in the relationships I mentioned. Those things were just the tip of the iceberg. In each case there was an admission of guilt by the other party, so I am 100% sure (unless they also lied about the deliberate action. Who knows with some people.. So maybe not 100%, but as sure as you can be about people's motives I guess). I still completely agree that it doesn't give a person entitlement over someone else's bodily autonomy. I was just saying that it does happen.

It's funny you should mention effectiveness. After the first time it happened, the next long term partner I had I used spermicidal lubricant. When she admitted to the trickery (because she thought she was pregnant) did a pregnancy test and it came back negative. My response was a big sigh of relief and to say "It's a good thing the lubricant I've been using is spermicidal I guess." To which she responded by yelling at me and saying I violated her all the times we had consensual sex because she didn't realize I was using a secondary contraceptive method. Yeah, like I said.. MANY problems in those relationships. I try to find partners that are more... erm, I guess sane would be an appropriate word.

And yes, I really hesitated before using the term "legal abortion" for it. The term doesn't really describe what I was meaning. Really, my thing with it is that it seems extremely wrong to also force a man to be obligated to support a child when they express their strong desire not to have said child during the early stages of pregnancy. I'm not saying that it gives them any right to make decisions regarding someone else's body, but that they also should have some mechanism available to them to prevent the woman's decision from having an undesired impact on their lives for the next 18 or so years.

Granted, there is technically a way for people to do this now (and this probably varies depending on locality) where a parent waives their parental rights. But there is a big problem with the system as it stands now. The courts in considering the motion for waiving parental rights act based on the best interest of the child. Which means that largely they don't grant motions to waive parental rights because they figure that the child is much better off if the mother/father continues to receive those child support checks. While I completely support that practice after the child is born, like I said in my previous posts I think the father should be able to waive those rights without the will of the court being thrust upon him during the same time period that the mother is legally able to have an abortion.

The short of it is, while a woman can choose to go and get an abortion simply because she doesn't want the obligation of raising a child, a man should be allowed to waive parental rights of that unborn child and be exempted from any future obligations of raising that child for the exact same reason._________________My deviantArt - Blog-ity blog

as our comments crossed over in a couple of places, I will point out that you actually did address one comment directly to me before I replied to an earlier comment of yours that had been directed to Sam, and which then resulted in a spiral of replies that left your comment to me partly unaddressed. Although my answer was similar to the reply I gave to vector010 I didnít have the time earlier to reply to the question you specifically wanted me to answer (and which you reiterated above).

Darqcyde wrote:

On a related note: should there be established a legal precedent of non-enforceable paternity if it can be proven that conception happened under deceptive practices?

Okay. But it is off-topic. As Lasairfiona pointed out, I donít see how something like this would be provable beyond the normal Ďhe said she saidí dynamic which already plays out in courts (usually, to find that such disputes canít be resolved beyond the point of reasonable doubt that they ever happened), unless there were something concrete or binding, like a pre-nuptial agreement or contract in writing, that had been agreed to by the parties. That doesnít tend to happen very often. So sometimes courts do things like take the character of the witnesses into account, to assess whether they seem honest under questioning.

As I said in reply to vector010, if pregnancy by deception takes place, then in terms of consenting partners whoíve been having sex, then there are major problems with basic honesty and communication of intent going wrong. That might go down a well-travelled road that consent was obtained by deception Ė fraud. Iím not inclined to arbitrate the rights and wrongs of deceptive practices, but I am aware it happens in cases other than where someone ends up pregnant, because some people are dishonest. Is there really an unusual legal precedent here that hasnít already been considered as an outcome of dishonesty and fraud, rather than tying this to the consequences of sex and withdrawal of consent? Itís already very well established you can withdraw sexual consent even in the middle of the act of having sex, so I would have thought that part isnít that controversial (except from the aspect of proving consent was withdrawn, see earlier re: Ďhe says she saysí).

Where thatís irrelevant to this thread is that in no way does someoneís deception act as a lever to enable the wronged party to have a say in that personís medical affairs. Yes itís another case of unfairness, but then so is the basic unfairness that the burden of pregnancy is completely one-sided, biologically.

(At least, that biological unfairness is going to continue for the forseeable future until it becomes possible that women arenít necessary to bring a foetus to full term. To answer Arkhron a page or so back: I doubt the medical technology for that is going to be available or sanctioned for human use any time soon. Either by involving a man as a surrogate, or by finding a way to intervene in the pregnancy to allow it to continue without a woman remaining bodily involved in the process Ė which might be an external womb.)

As for the rest of the discussion: my comments about the Devilís Advocate as a debating technique stand Ė it works best when both parties, pro and contra, have consented that they want to conduct an argument that way, because they can agree in advance to throw the gloves off and deal with the harshest objections they are prepared to handle. I donít wish to consent to such a discussion, here and now, for good reason. As I said, I find these discussions are highly uncomfortable and distressing to continue for very long, so Iím only continuing to engage with considerable reluctance and displeasure. Iíve already argued the Devilís Advocate is a highly disingenuous strategy indistinguishable from trolling when it is left undeclared at the start of an argument, but in this context it is especially disrespectful because the technique is exactly the sort of Ďargument to avoidí that is thrown out to derail and reduce discussions on this topic to become just like Ďevery other massively derailed, unproductive Internet discussion on abortion that we have had a million times before, and will have over and over again until the end of timeí. Iím extremely uninterested in that sort of unproductive discussion and thatís really the last I want to say about it. If other people take you up on it, thatís their lookout. I hope thatís clear?

...there is a point between the extremes of "it's solely her choice" and "it's solely his choice" that needs to be sought and considered.

Yes, indeed, the woman is who is facing the risks of pregnancy. But hers is the body that is at all equipped to do so, also.

She bears, iniquitously, more risk, but there is more to be considered, here, than simply risk. There is also the outcome.

Do the ends justify the means, then? Is there any way to give a man a vote on the outcome that is not either pointless or coercive? Would you invoke a social argument, some involvement of third parties, in a way that would be anything other than pointless or coercive? You have tripped into a true dichotomy here, one where you must come down in favor of autonomy or against it. There is no mealy-mouthed middle ground that is not tantamount to coercion.

While there have been plenty of societies that have been strictly on the authoritarian side, that offends the libertarian sensibilities of the post-Enlightenment Westerner. And yet, our legal consensus still Solomonically splits the baby, as it were, restricting abortions past a certain point, and limiting the interval of autonomous choice to the first few months. Is that just? And if it is, why is the line drawn where it is? Could it be more just if it were changed one direction or another?

(As an aside, this use of the term 'iniquitously' had me scratching my head, being a synonym for 'wickedly' or 'sinfully,' which I suppose could fit if used as an intensifier. I think 'inequitably' was meant instead.)

The legalities vary (IANAL&TINLA) but in most American jurisdictions the presumptive father is on the hook without recourse for paternal support as of the moment of conception, barring a prior contract stipulating otherwise. This is for the very good social reason that children need support, and that holding fathers responsible does not offend anyone's sense of justice very much. The courts have upheld this responsibility (Darqcyde and vector010 take note) even in cases where the father was deliberately tricked into fathering a child, for the same social reasons - and even when the presumptive father was not the biological father, though we're moving farther away now from the shared sense of justice. (I'm not aware of any cases where the father was raped by the mother; that might lead to a different result.) This responsibility for support in and of itself, however, confers no rights to control the pregnancy or its outcome, or even rights to custody or visitation. Those beans - they are tough ones.

So at this point, you may be thinking, "but wait," and wanting to point out once again as vector010 does the essential unfairness that a woman can choose to end her pregnancy and avoid all the attendant costs, physical, mental, and financial, of bearing and bringing up a child, whereas a man who has done his part in the conception has no such choice available. He cannot say "I vote abortion; if you carry to term I wash my hands of all responsibility." Our society, through our justice system, has said that the option to make such a statement existed for him only up until the act that brought about conception.

And this is why. In a strictly economic sense, the woman who has just become pregnant has a valuable option, a collar of a sort, one that you could put an actual price tag on if you were so inclined and had sufficient sangfroid. The option, and its value, belong to the woman precisely because it is her body that is host to the pregnancy, with all the attendant risks, liabilities, and responsibilities. The father is subject to no such risks or liabilities, and thus is unable to legally escape the responsibilities. There you have the social argument for what makes it fair. Does it satisfy? Clearly not for everyone.

As far as I'm aware, there are no restrictions on offering non-coercive inducements to the mother-to-be to either end her pregnancy or carry to term - tantamount to buying out that option, in so many words. (Maybe there are some restrictions, I haven't really looked.) Love, or money, or both, are the currencies you could bring into play. Considering that in monetary terms alone the costs of child support could run to hundreds of thousands of dollars, there may be powerful incentives to make a deal - and for those happy to bear such costs for the chance to raise a child of their own, equally powerful incentives to deal.

But incentives, that's all you get, and all you can use, if you're the father. Unless you want to play dictator._________________The reward for a good life is a good life.

Child support and parental rights haven't really been addressed much, yet, in this discussion, although they are also central issues about a pregnancy to be considered along with the question of who has what input to the decision whether or not to bear the child to term.

These are not central issues about a pregnancy. They are central issues about a born child. A foetus is not a child. That has been pointed out to you a couple of times, and unless you really want to try your hand at arguing otherwise, it is unacceptable that you keep basing arguments on assuming a foetus is a person, or implying that abortion is criminal._________________"To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others."
- Anne-Sophie Swetchine

The legalities vary (IANAL&TINLA) but in most American jurisdictions the presumptive father is on the hook without recourse for paternal support as of the moment of conception, barring a prior contract stipulating otherwise. This is for the very good social reason that children need support, and that holding fathers responsible does not offend anyone's sense of justice very much.

This does offend my sense of justice, although I would be unable to say with how much muchness it does so. To penalize a man for an irresponsible act of sex by making him pay for it for 18 years after the event rings very similar with anti-choice individuals wanting to penalize a woman for an irresponsible act of sex by making her bear a child.

However, I have little trouble accepting this injustice, because the system protects the welfare of a great many more children than it unjustly punishes accidental dads. The system is good enough for now.

I think that in the long run, as political opinion drifts a bit more socially just, enforcement of child support will be reduced to affect parents who knowingly and willingly participated in having a child, with the slack being picked up by federal family care programs.

Bootstrap advocates will of course grumble about those few who abuse family care, much like they do about those who abuse welfare, but we will ignore their posturing, because it is better for society as a whole to assume this burden than to force it on the few._________________"To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others."
- Anne-Sophie Swetchine